We're baack! We've decided to go local and rent an apartment in Haarlem, Netherlands. Haarlem is about a 15 minute train ride from Amsterdam and as we've found out this week, has a lot to offer on its own!

When we last wrote on the blog, we were in the middle of Germany and we have done a lot since then!

After saying goodbye to Matt's folks in Rothenburg along with a certain piece of pottery from Italy :( , we headed to the Rhine Valley.

[The pottery was a large plate that we had hand carried from Gubbio. It was gorgeously hand painted with an antique finish. Craftspeople in Gubbio are known for a certain style of pottery and we really loved this piece. The large plate broke when we left the hotel in Rothenburg. We were both heartbroken. Robin cried for most of the day over it, as it was our best souvenier from Italy. The saving part was that the two small matching plates arrived in New York via Matt's folks safely. The ironic part about the loss of the plate was that it was very easy for us to forget that where we had been just two months earlier (in Africa) most people that we met didn't even have food for their plates, let alone a plate to be used just for decoration. Travel, in this case, has expanded and contracted our minds.]

We stayed in Bacharach (with no sign of Burt). Bacharach was a very quaint and sleepy town right on the river. We rented bicycles and pedaled along the River to Saint Goar, home to a big old fortress. The ruins were cool to see and overlooked the Rhine.

So, there we were in the Rhine Valley. The Valley is known for wine production and the number of castles along its banks. The castles were used as expensive toll booths for boats moving cargo up and down the River. Huge chains were stretched across the river to exhort money from the boat captains. Pay up!

Nowadays, tons of barges ferry tourists and goods up and down the river, with no sign of a chain. We were amazed at the speed in which the river flowed along. The path along the river is really multi-modal, with boats on the river, two lanes of traffic on both sides of the river, train tracks on both sides and a bike and footpath on the west bank of the river.

After leaving Bacharach, we headed to Paris for four nights. Since we had visited Paris in 1999, we were able to skip some of the touristic stuff, like the Arc d'Triomph but still went to the Eiffel Tower (which sparkles on the hour at night with thousands of bright twinkly lights). Paris did not fail to disappoint, with mostly friendly Parisians, great food, outstanding window shopping and one surly restauranteur (who we walked out on)!

We went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa (along with everyone else), Egyptian relics (one on the left), and the Venus de Milo (front and back).

One other cool thing about Paris is that we were able to meet up with our sister in law, Meg who was in Paris for the Paris Air Show. We had a beer in the Latin Quarter and got caught up on family happenings...

As we said above, we are now in our new home in Haarlem. We are renting an attic loft in the home of Mia and Marlies, two super-friendly women and their two sons. We have our own kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. We can be in two separate rooms for the first time in a long time! We have been busying ourselves with grocery shopping and other mundane errands, which, for us, are very fun and amusing! We have not learned any Nederlandish (Dutch) since most everyone we meet speaks better English than us. Haarlem is bike-crazy, with cyclists everywhere, much more than in Portland, but we think this is because its super flat here. No gears needed!

Our next steps are to relax and take some day trips, maybe get bicycles and think about a couple of short trips to France, Belgium and Germany.

We will post photos soon!